Personally I had forecasted World of Warcraft to "borrow" the idea of public quests in the next expansion. But given the success of Rift, apparently Blizzard decided that this couldn't wait. So today they announced that public quests will be introduced already in patch 4.3.

Details are still a bit sketchy, but apparently the public quests will be tied to Deathwing attacks. So instead of just burning everything and giving players an achievement, Deathwing will open up invasion portals with the usual cast of Twilight's Hammer cultists and dragonkin coming through. Players in the area will receive a warning of the invasion, and have to work together to close those portals, before the invasion takes over the various quest hubs in the area. In the area around the portals there will be some open group system, and beating back the invasion will reward players with judgement and valor points to buy gear with.

Using Deathwing for the public quest system suggests to me that this is an experiment, because obviously Blizzard won't be able to use the same baddy in the next expansion. Although of course the principle is probably useable with most sorts of expansion final boss. I doubt they'll go back to Northrend and do Scourge invasions controlled by the Lich King though, as nobody is playing in those zones any more. Makes you wonder how public quest invasions will play out in the long term with players abandoning old zones.
- posted by Tobold Stoutfoot @ 8:31 AM Permanent Link
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5/10. Balanced and believable, but not shocking enough, and no graphics.

Blizzard has had these kinds of experiments before in Vanilla: Ahn'Qiraj and Naxxramas were accompanied by extensive invasions. Instead of some nebulous public quest system, they used normal looting rules.

I think the best April Fool joke would be if this post was NOT an April Fool joke.

The details are a joke. The underlying assumption that a public quest system is *not* incompatible with World of Warcraft, and might be patched in, albeit more likely with a new expansion, is not a joke. If public quests become a "must have" feature of MMORPGs, why shouldn't WoW introduce them?

I think you are right Tobold, WoW will likely introduce this if they see that it is successful. nothing wrong with that. Of course what you were describing was more public quest with dynamic invasions with zone wide event with open grouping. That would be more ambitious and all those things don't necessarily have to go together. I also doubt how well it would go to add something like this on. Not that blizz isn't capable of pulling it off but simply because baking things like this into the base design of the game is a huge advantage. What I do see, however, is blizzard experimenting with this in WoW with an eye to fully impliment things like this into Titan. Given that things continue to go well for Rift.

As for April Fool's day. I will say that the idea of crabby is more terrifying than funny. Glad that is not for real. But I did get a good chuckle out of Omgsogoth.

We already had invasion portals a la Rift when Cataclysm was looming. Does no one else remember hunting down an Air Portal before ever raid for the 300% haste proc? 300% haste did and does FUNNY things with Shadow Priest DoTs.

Or just play Rift and stop hoping for a company that released an over-tuned Nefarian 2.0, is still working on a patch to release Troll Zones 2.0 so you can farm gear to fight an over-tuned Ragnaros 2.0 to make radical changes to their game outside of an expansion pack.

Ugh. Wow. I fell for it for a minute, too. I WAS going to post, "*ears-perk* WoW re-sub?" But, yeah... Sigh.

That was a good one.

Side-note, when people mentioned the elemental invasions, I was suddenly irked and disappointed at the thought of WoW implementing Rift-style invasions the way they did the elemental invasions. The feel of those little closures was very underwhelming in a way I'll have to analyze properly later to describe. Also there was no cooperation - only competition. I could just see that totally lack-lustre 2D blue swirling portal effect that they use for everything being used to teleport in dragonkin and the only thing I could think of was Violet Hold and 'yawn'.

Invasions just aren't the same without the skies darkening and tentacles tearing back the folds of reality.

It has been ages since I've commented on your blog Tobold (probably since I stopped writing on my own blog). I admit, you got me until I saw the comments lol. You made me smile.

Side note: you still have me as a reader and love to read the occasional post that catches my eye. It is all in the title and first paragraph that ropes me in (if that helps you). Keep up the good work.

Side side note: I just received an email, ironically just as I was ending this post, from Blizzard. I haven't played in about 9 months and they say my account has been compromised by someone not authorized to do so. Just thought I'd share that....seriously, no joke.

I think it is plausable and I'm sure they are working on something to address the rift phenom right now.

The fact is that most people would rather stick with a game they know and have leveled a toon through, than to level a whole new character in a new game and find a new guild and friends to play with. And I think Blizzard knows this. But that is a whole other topic.

Ahahaha, fuck me. Of all the reading I did on the first, for some reason I never questioned this part. I even mentioned it to someone on Saturday. I didn't think to check it until this morning going "Wait, didn't he write that on the 1st?" I got pwnt :(